A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare'sThe Tempest

by Hobson Woodward

  Mentors have been a constant source of support and inspiration throughout my life, especially Donald W. Stokes, Benjamin Daise, Steve Sheppard, Elizabeth Shown Mills, C. S. Lovelace, Elizabeth Oldham, Laura Prieto, and C. James Taylor. George Sommers, Michael Muehe, Brian Calhoun-Bryant, Michael McHone, Nancy McHone, Peter Greenhalgh, Kevin Blanchard, Christy Law Blanchard, and Ran Baumflek have always been glad to talk about my latest discoveries. No one has been a greater encouragement to me than my family. Sarah Bliss, Dianne O’Donoghue, Barbara Bardenett, Amy Johnson, Greg Johnson, Gary Root, Christine Root, Paul Root, Alan Root, and Dennis Dickquist have offered support from the very beginning. My brother, Stewart Woodward, has been a lifelong friend and guiding presence. My mother, Mary S. Skinner, introduced me to history and has given me the sense of adventure and fortitude I needed to follow my aspirations. My father, V. Powell Bliss, has shared with me countless treasured adventures in pursuit of elusive ancestors and given me a sense of compassion that is the center of my life. My wife, Elizabeth Woodward, provides me unlimited love and patience and the good cheer of a best friend, for which I am eternally grateful. My daughters, Sadie and Sage, have endured two years of “Daddy’s book” with loving words and good humor that always makes me smile.

  NOTES

  Abbreviations

  ANC Ancient Planters. “A Breife Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia During the First Twelve Yeares.” In Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia 1619-1658/59, edited by H. R. McIlwaine. Richmond, VA: Colonial Press, 1915.

  ARD William Shakespeare. The Tempest. The Arden Shakespeare. Edited by Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. London: Thomson Learning, 1999.

  BER Nathaniel Butler. The Historye of the Bermudaes or Summer Islands. Edited by J. Henry Lefroy. London: Hakluyt Society, 1882.

  DIS Silvester Jourdain. A Discovery of the Barmudas, Otherwise Called the Ile of Divels. London: Roger Barnes, 1610.

  EST Virginia Company of London. A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia. London: William Barret, 1610.

  FIR Philip L. Barbour, ed. The Jamestown Voyages Under the First Charter 1606-1609. 2 vols. London: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1969.

  GEN Alexander Brown, ed. The Genesis of the United States. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1890.

  HIS William Strachey. The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia. Edited by R. H. Major. London: Hakluyt Society, 1849.

  NAR Edward Wright Haile, ed. Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617. Champlain, VA: Roundhouse, 1998.

  NEW David B. Quinn, ed. New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612. 5 vols. New York: Arno Press, 1979.

  PIL Samuel Purchas, ed. Purchas His Pilgrimes. 4 vols. London: Henrie Fetherstone, 1625.

  REL Mark Nicholls. “George Percy’s ‘Trewe Relacyon’: A Primary Source for the Jamestown Settlement.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 113, no. 3 (2005): 212-75.

  SMI John Smith. The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580-1631). Edited by Philip L. Barbour. 3 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

  TRU Virginia Company of London. A True and Sincere Declaration of the Purpose and Ends of the Plantation Begun in Virginia. London: J. Stepneth, 1610.

  VOY Louis B. Wright, ed. A Voyage to Virginia in 1609, Two Narratives: Strachey’s “True Reportory” and Jourdain’s “Discovery of the Bermudas.” Charlottesville: Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities by the University Press of Virginia, 1964.

  In A Brave Vessel I have modernized spelling, punctuation, and capitalization in quotations, with the exception of those from Shakespeare that follow the latest Arden editions. Citations of original works are followed by parenthetical references to the same material in recent documentary editions. Publications that do not have numbered pages are cited with supplied page numbers in brackets.

  In the seventeenth century, Britain had not yet recalibrated the flawed “old-style” calendar, and to maintain the integrity of the original documents I have retained those dates. Therefore, every date cited is ten days behind the modern one. The only element of the old-style system that I have modernized is the date on which the year began (in seventeenth-century Britain the year began on March 25, but I have pushed the date back to the modern January 1). By 1609, Spain and the Netherlands had switched to the modern calendar, and so documents from those countries already carry new-style dates. To minimize confusion, those new-style dates are not cited in the text, and passages from those documents are silently placed at the appropriate points within the old-style timeline. Brown in GEN altered the dates of British documents to new style, and I have silently brought those dates back into sync with the old-style dates written on the originals.

  Strachey in HIS copied without attribution long passages from the works of John Smith, and Smith himself appropriated passages written by other chroniclers. I have attempted to attribute quotations from the works of Strachey and Smith to the people who originally made them.

  Chapter One

  “Thou hast howled”: 1.2.296, ARD, 170. Strachey’s biography: Culliford, Strachey , 4-5, 22-38, 47-55, 57-60, 67; Sanders, Family, 10-27; Dorman, Purse, 3:251- 57; NAR, 62-63; GEN, 2:1024; Wood, “Strachey”; Sheehan, “Strachey.” Sejanus publication: Stationers’ Company, Registers, 3:201. “Nothing violent,” “swift lightning,” “ruinous blasts”: Jonson, Sejanus [11]. “My old companion”: Foster, Elegy, 288. Trip to Turkey, “one Strachey”: Culliford, Strachey, 61-96 (quotation: 93).

  “Vaunt-courier,” “hurricano”: 3.2.2, 3.2.5, Shakespeare, King Lear (Arden, 2001), 263. Ashe, “Strachey,” 509-11, proposes that Shakespeare used Strachey’s sonnet in King Lear. Scholars continue to debate the question because it is uncertain whether Shakespeare’s play came before or after the May 1605 publication of his main source, the earlier anonymous play King Leir. Knowles, “King Leir,” 12-35, makes a compelling case that Shakespeare was inspired by the published version rather than an earlier direct knowledge of the play, and I have proceeded on that basis. Also considering the question are Foster, Elegy, 287 (accepts Shakespeare’s use of Strachey); Taylor, “Source” (argues the playwright used additional post-May 1605 texts); Greenblatt, “King Lear” (notes general agreement on a post-May 1605 date for King Lear); Muir in Shakespeare, King Lear (Arden, 1972), xx-xxi (argues Shakespeare was first and Strachey copied King Lear); Kermode, “King Lear,” 1297-98 (agrees that Strachey copied Shakespeare but says the evidence is not strong); Wells in Shakespeare, King Lear (Oxford), 14 (argues that the resemblance between the sonnet and the play is coincidental).

  Origin of “hurricane”: Emanuel, Divine, 18. Strachey familiar with Willes: Culliford, Strachey, 167-71. Strachey quotes Willes: PIL, 4:1738-41, (NAR, 391-92, 395, 396, 398, 400-401). “In time when”: Willes, Travayle, 434 (verso), 435 (verso). “When we came in”: Hakluyt, Navigations, 3:493.

  Namontack overview: Vaughan, Transatlantic, 45-51, 276-78. While no document states that Strachey saw Namontack in London, Strachey’s interest in Virginia and Namontack’s notoriety make it likely that he did. Wahunsenacawh, Powhatan, and Tsenacomoco: HIS, 29, 47, 48 (NAR, 598, 613-14). I follow Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, when spelling Powhatan words. Tsenacomoco population: Fausz, “Powhatan.” “Trusty servant”: SMI, 1:216. Namontack’s first encounters: SMI, 1:63, 67, 91, 216, 240, 2:187, 290. Namontack’s 1608 trip abroad: NAR, 451; SMI, 1:236-37, 2:183-84. “This Newport brought”: FIR, 1:163 (in translation). Powhatan hairstyles, “some have chains,” “I found not”: NAR, 122-23. “Had gone naked”: Crashaw, Sermon [39]. Plague symptoms and care: Aberth, Brink, 111, 118, 121-22. Epidemic dates: Bradbrook, Shakespeare, 207, 250.

  “My good friend,” “I dare boldly”: Culliford, Strachey, 93. Countess of Bedford’s patronage of Donne: Lawson, Shadows, 74, 86-111; Thomson, “Donne,” 329-40; Stubbs, Donne, 221-24, 240-47, 300-306. “My Lady Bedford,” “the best lady”: Stu
bbs, Donne, 224, 241. No document states that Strachey visited the countess, but he surely did if she was the recipient of his Bermuda letter to the “Excellent Lady.” See chapter eight notes below. Publicity drive unprecedented: Skura, “Discourse,” 55; Linebaugh and Rediker, Hydra, 15; Fitzmaurice, Humanism , 63-64, and “Solution,” 43-44, 47. “They have collected”: FIR, 2:256. Virginia Company’s early success: Fausz, “Blood,” 29. “News here”: FIR, 1:247. Donne’s Virginia inquiry: Culliford, Strachey, 101; Lawson, Shadows, 107; Cooper, “Donne.” Donne’s earlier expeditions: Stubbs, Donne, 47-79. Matthew Scrivener appointed Jamestown secretary: Culliford, Strachey, 102-3.

  Strachey’s acquisition of two shares Virginia Company stock: Culliford, Strachey, 101-2; NAR, 63. While Culliford proposes Strachey purchased shares, his agreement to travel abroad would have entitled him to a single share, and his elevated social status would have brought him additional value. Thus, he probably acquired them simply by signing on. Stock terms: Johnson, Nova [26]-[30] (NEW, 245-46). Present-day value: Officer, “Purchasing Power.” Appearance of certificate: Quinn, “Pious,” 553. Strachey kept a journal: Culliford, Strachey, 123, 185; Wright and Freund in Strachey, Historie of Travell (1953), xv.

  Newport’s January 1609 return to England: FIR, 1:246-47; SMI, 1:127. “The kind reception” and Namontack’s return to England: NAR, 450-51. If Namontack rode home on the Sea Venture in May 1609, then he surely came to England with Newport on the only known voyage from Virginia in the winter of 1608 to 1609. The question of whether Namontack and Machumps were aboard the Sea Venture has long been a subject of inquiry, most comprehensively by Vaughan in Transatlantic. Two widely cited accounts place Namontack on the ship: John Smith in his 1624 General Historie in SMI, 2:350, claims Machumps murdered Namontack on Bermuda, and Purchas in 1625 referred to the alleged murder in PIL, 4:1771 (probably echoing Smith). Undermining Smith and Purchas (neither of whom were on the Sea Venture) is the fact that the Powhatans were not mentioned by anyone who was on board, most notably Strachey, who includes no Powhatan in a list of five people who died on Bermuda in PIL, 4:1746 (NAR, 413). What seems to be additional evidence against their claim is that in later writings Strachey mentions both Namontack (in a prevoyage context) and Machumps without stating that he had sailed with them. Smith was known to publish hearsay as fact, and the fifteen-year gap between the Bermuda sojourn and his claim suggests he may have been doing so in this case. Smith’s macabre report seems more like an English cartoon of Powhatan behavior than a true account. Likewise, it seems unlikely that the English would not have punished Machumps if (as Smith alleges) he told them of the murder after his return to Virginia.

  Despite the above evidence, an overlooked third record by a contemporary Dutch writer makes it clear that Namontack and Machumps were indeed on the Sea Venture and that the English did indeed believe that Machumps murdered Namontack on Bermuda. The passage appears in Dutch in Van Meteren’s posthumous 1614 edition of Historie der Neder-landscher, portions of which Parker translates in Van Meteren’s. In a passage on 66-67, 71, Van Meteren relays information provided by Gates in 1610 (whether directly from Gates or through an intermediary is unclear): “During all this time they lost only four men, of whom one was a casicke, or son of a king in Virginia who had been in England and who had been killed by an Indian, his own servant.” Linebaugh and Rediker note this account in Hydra, 12, 356, without elaborating on its significance to this debate.

  An additional overlooked clue further strengthens the case that Powhatans sailed on the Sea Venture. Strachey in PIL, 4:1741-47 (NAR, 400, 416), states that two canoes were in use on Bermuda. Though the English castaways built a small boat of European design on the island, as noted by Strachey in PIL, 4:1740 (NAR, 397), and Jourdain in DIS, 12-13 (VOY, 110), shipwrecked Englishmen whose labor was at a premium would surely not have experimented with the construction of dugout canoes of New World design. A pair of stranded Powhatans, however, with ample time, fire, and lumber and a pressing need to fish would almost certainly have done so. Thus, Strachey’s mention of canoes on Bermuda constitutes significant circumstantial evidence that Powhatans were present.

  Newport’s presence on the Sea Venture also enhances the likelihood that Namontack was on board. Namontack guided Newport in Virginia, and Newport chaperoned Namontack on his first trip to England. Newport was at the helm of the ship that probably carried Namontack abroad a second time; it is likely the Powhatan envoy would have returned home with the same captain.

  There are two post-Sea Venture references to Namontack, but neither indicates that he was living at the time. Strachey, in his one comment about him, in HIS, 131 (NAR, 687), notes that mines discovered by Namontack in 1608 were named for him. The other allusion is in a May 1614 account of a conversation between colonist Hamor and Wahunsenacawh in Hamor’s Discourse, 38 (NAR, 831) (the same exchange is recounted in SMI, 2:248). The Powhatan leader told Hamor that he had sent Namontack into England (for a second time) and that many ships had returned without him. Hamor revealed nothing about Namontack’s disappearance, undoubtedly for tactical reasons. The exchange suggests that when Machumps returned to Virginia without his companion he told Wahunsenacawh that Namontack had stayed behind in England.

  A 1630 English narrative in NAR, 245, complicates the matter by mentioning a Powhatan traveler to England identified as “Nanawack,” who is said to have come to England when Delaware was colonial governor (between June 1610 and March 1611), stayed “a year or two” and died in England. Despite the similarity in the names Nanawack and Namontack, the strength of the Van Meteren evidence forces the conclusion that either Nanawack was a different man or the account is a distorted version of Namontack’s story. Vaughan, Transatlantic, 51-52, 278, argues that they were different people.

  Machumps is mentioned as alive after the Sea Venture wreck by Strachey in HIS, 26, 54, 94 (NAR, 596, 619-20, 655). In one case, Strachey states that Machumps spent time in England, a significant point, since there were few opportunities for him to go abroad and return unless he rode the Sea Venture. Whitaker in NAR, 550, makes the last known allusion to Machumps in August 1611.

  The most significant obstacle to the claim that Namontack and Machumps were on Bermuda is the absence of English prosecution of Machumps’s alleged murder of Namontack. Crimes by Powhatans living among the English would likely have been prosecuted under English law. In light of this, I have depicted Namontack as disappearing on Bermuda, Machumps (whether innocent or guilty) claiming ignorance of his companion’s fate, Gates assuming foul play but lacking evidence of a crime, and in 1624 John Smith (or one of his reporters) exaggerating details of Namontack’s presumed death (perhaps confusing it with that of Samuel, who was murdered on the island by a fellow sailor). An enticing but speculative possibility is that whoever provided the bloody portrait of Machumps conflated the biography of the Powhatan castaway and Shakespeare’s portrait of the fictional and monstrous Caliban.

  Virtually all scholars to date who have addressed the question of Namontack ’s and Machumps’s presence on the Sea Venture have been aware only of the Smith and Purchas passages. They include Malone, Account, 3-4 (published in 1808); Rountree and Turner, Before, 81 (accept Smith’s statement); Horn, Land, 144 (places Machumps on the Sea Venture without mention of murder); Kelso, Buried, 36 (dates Namontack’s death as 1610 without comment); and Vaughan, Transatlantic, 45-51, 276-78 (expresses doubt about Smith’s story). The question must now be reevaluated in light of Linebaugh and Rediker’s notice of the Van Meteren passage in Hydra and the overlooked circumstantial evidence of the presence of canoes, which together erase reasonable doubt that the Powhatan emissaries were on the Sea Venture.

  Stracheys’ Crowhurst residency: Culliford, Strachey, 32-33, 59. Household items described: Picard, Elizabeth’s, 60-63, 127-31, 144-47. Items carried by colonists: Hughes, Letter [10]; REL, 215-16. “For the comfort”: Hughes [10]. Writing implements described: Picard, Elizabeth’s, 198; Kelso, Buried, 189. Strachey carried the books b
y Willes and Acosta: Culliford, Strachey, 165-71. Copy of Willes signed and dated by Strachey: James, Dream, 202-3. “You all know”: Price, Sauls [44]. “The sickness increases”: Brown, Republic, 83.

  Chapter Two

  “Though fools”: 3.3.27, ARD, 236. Woolwich departure: Archer in PIL, 4:1733 (FIR, 2:279). Since Archer was on board, I have accepted his account over that of Londoner Powle, who claims a Blackwall departure in Quinn, “Pious,” 554. Woolwich description: Weinreb and Hibbert, London, 971. Carriage transport: Picard, Elizabeth’s, 31-35. Vessels’ names: PIL, 4:1733 (FIR, 2:280). The vessel called “Catch” was either named Catch or was a ketch. Given the prevalence of the ketch class, as noted in Baker, Vessels, 119-44, I have called it an unnamed ketch. Fleet makeup: PIL, 4:1733 (FIR, 2:279); PIL, 4:1734 (NAR, 383); DIS, 4 (VOY, 105). Five hundred colonists: TRU, 7 (NAR, 360); FIR, 2:255, 276; SMI, 2:219; Bernhard, “Response,” 668. One hundred and sixty mariners: estimate based on Lavery, Merchantman, 24; Mainwaring, Dictionary, 183; Barbour, Pocahontas, 97; Gill, Plymouth: 1603, 7; Camfield, “Worms,” 654-55. The best formula is Lavery’s inferred adjusted average of one crewman for every 8.6 tons burden of a ship.

  Prevalence of figureheads on ships like the Sea Venture: Lavery, Merchantman , 18-19. Sea Venture dimensions based on wreck: Wright, Story, 24, 27; Mardis, Wreck, 47-57. Three hundred tons burthen: PIL, 4:1747 (NAR, 415); Craven, “Hughes,” 75; BER, 11; Burrage, Lost, 3. Sea Venture a new ship: Stow, Annales (1615), 944. Wright, Story, 10; Raine, “Somers,” 91; Peterson, “Sea Venture,” 40-46, speculate about the origin of the Sea Venture based on records of vessels that shared the relatively common name. Wright proposes it was built in 1608 in Aldeburgh, England, based on Marsden, “Ships,” 331, 336-37, whereas Peterson suggests that it was a textile ship launched in 1603. Vessel design based on wreckage: Wingood, “Report” (1982), 335; Adams, “Report” (1985), 297. London departure date: PIL, 4:1733 (FIR, 2:279); Quinn, “Pious,” 554.